Minnesota is becoming to 2008 politics what Florida was in 2000 or Washington State in 2006 — a real mess. The outcome will determine whether Democrats get 58 members of the U.S. Senate, giving them an effective filibuster-proof vote on many issues.

When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 — a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.

Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount. Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported. Counties will certify their results today, and their final results will be sent to the secretary of state by Friday. The actual recount won’t even start until November 19.

Correcting these typos was claimed to add 435 votes to Franken and take 69 votes from Coleman. Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate. The Senate gains for Franken were 2.5 times the gain for Obama in the presidential race count, 2.9 times the total gain that Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races, and 5 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.

Virtually all of Franken’s new votes came from just three out of 4130 precincts, and almost half the gain (246 votes) occurred in one precinct — Two Harbors, a small town north of Duluth along Lake Superior — a heavily Democratic precinct where Obama received 64 percent of the vote. None of the other races had any changes in their vote totals in that precinct.

To put this change in perspective, that single precinct’s corrections accounted for a significantly larger net swing in votes between the parties than occurred for all the precincts in the entire state for the presidential, congressional, or state house races.

The two other precincts (Mountain Iron in St. Louis county and Partridge Township in Pine county) accounted for another 100 votes each. The change in each precinct was half as large as the pickup for Obama from the corrections for the entire state.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune attributed these types of mistakes to “exhausted county officials,” and that indeed might be true, but the sizes of the errors in these three precincts are surprisingly large.

Indeed, the 504 total new votes for Franken from all the precincts is greater than adding together all the changes for all the precincts in the entire state for the presidential, congressional, and state house races combined (a sum of 482). It was also true that precincts that gave Obama a larger percentage of the vote were statistically more likely to make a correction that helped Franken

Funny, Cynical didn’t seem to think the statistical problems with the Ohio vote in 2004 were significant. He seemed to think at the time that it was tough – votes were votes, and since the count was in Bush’s favor, everything else was irrelevant

The 2000 Presidential election recount in Florida, and the 2004 Washington State guvenatorial challenge, all were preceeded by a contested Alabama State Supreme Court election, managed by Rove. The tactics in all three were nearly identical. Expect to see the same in Minnesota.

You know, this kinda thing is going to be an ongoing complaint. I think Obama will likely clean up a lot of the destruction of the last 8 years in the executive branch. But while those things get cleaned up I bet there will be temptation on the part of staff to exercise some of the same freedoms that Bush gave them but in the opposite direction. I bet we’ll hear some howling from the right who thought letting the executive take these powers was just peachy when they were in power…

We are counting all the votes for Senator in MN. If Big Al wins, he wins. Even if some Coleman votes are lost, stolen, spindled or mutilated. How does that feel, fuck face. Your side is gonna lose. Wait, your side already lost.

A German newspaper reports that original Auschwitz blueprints have been found in a Berlin apartment. The architect’s drawings, which are dated Oct. 23, 1941, include gas chambers and corpse-handling facilities that are clearly marked as such.

The blueprints are important because they “reveal that everyone who had … anything … to do with the planning and construction of the concentration camp must have know that people were to be gassed to death in assembly-line fashion,” the newspaper Bild wrote, “refut[ing] once and for all claims by those who deny the Holocaust even took place.”

@12: It is just sick that an architect would “design” a death camp complete with gas chambers.

Holocaust deniers are the scum of the earth. Revisionists who try to deny what was the most horrible crime on the 20th century. Never forget that gays, gypsies, political prisoners and others were also treated the same way. No one should be treated like that – and I fault Clinton for not having the poltical courage to intervene in Rwanda – but praise him for the Balkans. (Clinton even admits Rwanda as his biggest mistake).

Once saw my father hit a man for denying to him that the Holocaust existed. I was 15. If someone were to deny the facts of the Holocaust to me, in my fathers memory and in his honor, I would drop them on the spot.

My father: Jewish, Army Airborne Ranger, Sergeant, he was at the gate when Dachau was opened and freed. He saw it. He carried the walking dead to vehicles. He KNEW it existed. He TOUCHED its horrors.

In his later years as the owner of a store in Oregon, a young man came in with a swastika tattoo on his arm. My father went up to him, and while touching his arm, ask “Do you know what that stands for, what it means?”. The young man said “Old man, it stands for white power”. My father explained what the symbol really meant, what is stood for and told him to leave the store and not to return with the tattoo showing. Ever again. The young man left with a grumble.

Several weeks later he was in the store again, 97 degree day. He had on a plaid flannel shirt.

The Budget Deficit PER GARY LOCKE and LOCKE’s FORMER BUDGET DIRECTOR is now closer to $4.5 BILLION. This ain’t Republican’s talking. And the dinky, feel-good cuts she proposed during the campaign are “INSIGNIFICANT” per Locke’s former Budget Director.

We should expect a public vote with the largest tax increase in History. Pass it OR ELSE. Or else be punished with cuts in Parks, Rec…..everything folks like.

And idiots like you want to screw the Building Industry which is a HUGE part of State Revenue and already screwed???

You f*cking KLOWN! You would stab the building industry in the a$$ even though your dick is in there! Idiots.

If the Building Industry continues to bleed to death, we will have massive unemployment and an even worse Deficit. They employ 300,000 people bonehead.

Idiots like you obviously work for the government. Hope you get your sorry ass laid off.

The next major will be over the Gregoire Tax Initiative. There will be massive opposition…I hope it fails & and you get laid off!

If it fails, probably 15,000 State Workers will be canned. Every $75000 of lost revenue = another laid of State Worker.

Go ahead….keep punishing the Building Industry. Just means less of you a$$holes.

Well the automakers need the money because lefties in Congress imposed environmental regulations and forced the automakers to retool to meet the new mandated obligations.

But Al Gore once said of the internal combustion engine in 25 years in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, “a mortal threat . . . more deadly than that of any military enemy.” Well Al your peeps almost did it in 16.

Average Ford, GM, and Chrysler auto union worker wages and benefits is $73.20 an hour.

Average Toyota auto worker wages and benefits is $48 an hour.

Average wages and benefits for management and professional workers, it is $47 an hour.

My father was a better man than either of us. He had self-control enough for a hundred men.

I guess you would have had to serve when he served, the way he served. You would have had to have seen what he saw, walked where he walked. He was a disciplined man. He beat no one. He lived the Ranger Creed from the time he was 17 until he passed away at 67. He was worn out by life and war and he died far too young. He helped save not the United States, but the entire world.

You on the other hand just sit and type whatever drivel happens to cross your mind. Did you serve, marvin? Something tells me you did not.

Were you and I to meet, honor will compel me to allow you the opportunity to apologize for your remarks concerning my father. Should you fail to utilize that opportunity that same honor would require that I close your mouth for you.

Honor comes in many forms, marvin. Sometimes a physical reminder of how wrong you are will wipe the smug holier-than-thou look off your face and adjust your attitude all at once. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

November 17th issue of Time Magazine: “Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope.” Nancy Gibbs comparison of The Messiah of the World with the “messiah” of libtards!

I see that pudpuller could not sleep in this morning. Wonder if the bought that burka for his wife yet?

Pud, the sky is not falling. Your rantings are like chicken little and the boy who called wolf all rolled up into one neurotic, maniacal whack job. It is fun watching your head explode, but, you really should calm down and just go away. Scott has vanished, MTR barely shows up, Cyniclown and his delusions are fading too….you should take a hint and go away and regroup. You are embarrassing yourself, and your brothers, something awful.

Your rantings are like chicken little and the boy who called wolf all rolled up into one neurotic, maniacal whack job.

Ahh. He was always that way. Stupes, you lost. You thought right wing bullshit would carry the day so you could gloat over a right wing victory. You were wrong. Decent ordinary people can’t stand right wing bullshit. It hurts their ears. Its stink lingers in the room.

24. My Left Foot spews: Were you and I to meet, honor will compel me to allow you the opportunity to apologize for your remarks concerning my father. Should you fail to utilize that opportunity that same honor would require that I close your mouth for you.

From your words, it appears you believe violence is the answer to being offended.

Where’s your tolerance for opposing views?

Hypocrite.

Can’t blame you, it was how you were brought up. To use your fists when people say stuff you don’t want to hear.

For people like you, free speech is only for people saying what you want to hear.

How democrat of you.

In your mind, honor means violence. How sad for you and your siblings to be raised in such an environment.

You silly old man. Honor is knowing when to take a stand. Honor is knowing when turn and walk away. Honor is having the courage of your convictions.

What honor is not is hiding behind your keyboard and monitor and hurling invectives. Honor is not calling into question the family of your adversary.

The threat of violence, genius, is what makes it safe for you to walk the streets in America and to spout the ignorant pearls that you find so amusing. Without those who had honor enough to overcome their fears, who honorably laid down their lives, you would not be free to speak so much as a word of dissent in public.

You owe my father and my son and their brothers a debt of gratitude for their service, for their violence, sir, for without them and others like them you would not enjoy the freedom to be the arrogant, thoughtless, sub-human life form into which you have morphed.

Feel free to voice your opinion. Just don’t denigrate my family. If you want to claim that the Holocaust did not happen, fine with me. If you spout that crap in front of me, be prepared to have me point out, in no uncertain terms, how foolish and cowardly you have lived your life.

@24 We have no idea if your telling the truth or if your spewing liberal feel good stuff however,if it is the truth, too bad you didn’t take after him in values and respect for others. If your dad read any of your posts he would roll over in his grave.

@38 Honor and service is “liberal feel good stuff”? It appears that, following your ass-whupping on the 4th, you wing-nuts have gone off the deep end. It’s fun for me to watch, but it must really suck to be you.

@39 Actually no, It’s fun seeing libs try and defend themselves or others. Today on the radio a Liberal said obama IQ is off the board, the host asked what is his IQ? The Lib went on saying he would be the smartest POTUS we ever had. Again the host asked what is his IQ? The lib asked the host what do you think it is? The host said I don’t know do you? The lib said no idea but it must be high. “JUST WORDS”

Though Republicans were more negative about the election results 2008, they were consistently more upbeat than Democrats were in 2004 when their candidate, John Kerry, failed to unseat Bush. Forty-four percent of Democrats said they were angry and half said they were depressed in a November 2004 AP-Ipsos poll, double the GOP’s rates this year.

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